Chapter 24
The world alters to slow motion as a crippling blow lands in my stomach. Breaths echo in my head, and I slouch to breathe.
Disappearance … of his ex-fiancée? He told me he’d been devoted to someone, but he failed to mention that she went missing—and that he was under suspicion?
Fuck.
Bile gurgles up my throat, and I struggle not to throw up. I’d ask Grant something—anything, really, but too many questions snake through my brain, and the room falls away into a strange vortex. The voices of other people sound distant yet way too close all at once. I'm about to bolt to the bathroom, then leave when everything screeches to a halt—this time by the calm, unchanging voice of Brexton.
“Then why don’t you tell Olivia what you did?”
Pins and needles slam down on my shoulders as I look up to Grant.
He looks like death—night—blackness. Azure eyes are dilated and glassy, but not from lust. They seep calamity. The halo of light shining off his crown paints him as a death angel.
Calm fortitude has never seemed more sinister as Grant cocks one eyebrow up, and he continues. “Tell Olivia how you stole April from me, then killed her.”
I gasp, but there isn't time for a further reaction.
“Is that the sad, bitchy story you’re still going with?” Seth taunts. “I’m certain it’s illegal to make slanderous accusations, Grant. Looking for a lawsuit?”
“One wrong course of action, Seth.” Grant’s entire body tenses, going stony under my hands. “I’m waiting for you.
Seth’s eyes slide my way, and he cocks a smirk.
There’s a grime to it, and I scratch at my bare arm, detesting the slither occurring deep under my muscles.
Seth’s dark brown eyes rake over me once more, and it reminds me of Lonnie. It’s twisted. “When you’re ready for a real good time, find me. I’m here for a while.”
“You’ll stay the fuck away from her if you possess a fondness for keeping your intestines in your stomach and not your throat,” Grant threatens.
Part of my soul bends to Grant’s declaration. I move closer to him until half of my frame is nearly behind his. The action makes Seth leer at me with a cold, cruel gaze.
Another strike that Grant doesn’t take kindly to.
A deep, menacing growl leaves the back of his throat and fingers tighten around my arm, but you'd never know it happened when he finally speaks. “Come, Olivia, we're leaving.” The command is filled with unwavering control, and I obey without thinking.
“Running out so soon?” Seth calls after us.
“Yes.” Grant’s reply stops us long enough so he can look over his shoulder. “Unless you'd like your last meal to be your bowels, you’ll kindly watch us walk away from you.”
Seth halfway opens his mouth, then blink and you’ll miss it, and Grant is standing in front of Seth. His much larger frame shadows Seth. The new introduction has gone from looking average-sized to crushable. His lips snap shut, and his eyes widen—it’s like he knows he’s fucked.
“Try me,” Grant growls. “Keep me here long enough, and I guarantee people will shit on your grave for me as a favor.” He entwines our fingers, rougher than what’s normal, but in a way that makes me feel safe. No one would dare touch me when seeing me this connected to Grant. After he pulls on me again, we're moving. “Let's go.”
Seth says one more thing, but it's lost in the crowd, so I’m not even sure Grant hears it.
I make the mistake of glancing back, and my stomach takes a sickening flip.
The crowd swarms around a very still Seth, who has his hands shoved inside his pockets. Those puppy dog eyes are daggers staring right into Grant’s back right before transferring to me. He licks his lips, examining me, and I shiver and turn away. Focusing on Grant is much wiser.
I think.
There’s obviously a huge part of Grant I don’t know about, and that is unsettling, but the repercussions are what’s worrying me the most.
What if this new information blows up and shatters us into nothing but fragments of illusions and preconceptions?
And after finally thinking I was safe, what the fuck will I do now?
We step outside, no words having passed between us. Brisk air bites at my shoulders, making my skin pucker. A dead stillness in the usually never resting city echoes in my heart. Thumps reverberate in my throat as I'm tugged and hauled down the steps, forced to keep up as we hurry for the curb.
Grant's limo is already waiting for us, along with his driver, Harold. He opens the door and nods. “Evening, sir. Miss Tucker.”
Grant says nothing, pushes me inside, then climbs in himself, sitting across from me. The slamming door acts as a vault, sealing off air and common sense as a stifling tenseness implodes. Words finally stutter out when he gazes at me from across the limo and holds deep eye contact.
“She died?” It hits the air like a bomb, and a shrapnel of the heady revelation buries itself in my chest.
He scoffs and turns his head. “Died or was murdered?”
There’s a seedling of trepidation growing in my heart, and despite me trying to swallow the question back, it spews out all the same. “Do you have any proof it was Seth, or is that a way to throw off suspicion?”
“Oh, cut the shit, Olivia.” An intense gaze pinpoints on me, and he tilts his head. “I was under suspicion for her disappearance because we argued before she left. There was no evidence linking me to her death.”
I think of Lonnie and how simple it was for him to do the same thing five years ago. Too simple. Too easy. Too uncomplicated. My hands clench together as the fresh comparison of Grant and Lonnie tangles up my nerves. I don’t want to, but I can’t lessen my grip and end up squeezing until I’m white-knuckled.
“No evidence,” I whisper. “That’s a response I’ve heard before.”
“Are you shitting me right now, Olivia?”
I glance up, and he’s wide-eyed, his thick, dark lashes almost touching his brows.
“I was cleared in less than forty-eight hours. They found her body while I was still detained, and her death was less than two hours old. It was physically impossible for me to have done it.”
A lone streetlight passes over his face, and there’s wetness in the corners of his eyes. Crying. Holy—Grant is crying.
A hard swallow lurches down my throat.